


Proceed To the Next Level

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [45]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Medical School, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 08:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12744630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: You are Karkat Vantas, and you have been waiting for the Letter to End All Letters ever since you sent in your applications. Assuming you get accepted to your program, that could be the most important thing that has ever happened to you. And yet, you’re a little wistful either way, because this is your final year of college. You’re going to miss all the jackasses you've lived so close to during college. As much as you had a love-hate relationship with undergrad, you don't know if you're overjoyed that the end is in sight, or scared shitless.Later, when you start medical school properly, you and the two people you live with try to balance not having lives with trying to have lives, do all the assigned reading, not fail at anything major, and not lose your minds anymore than you already have. Jade calls this an adventure. You call it a flirtation with a nervous breakdown.





	Proceed To the Next Level

**Author's Note:**

> i said i was going to write neurotic med student karkat and i do not intend to disappoint

_Come so far, seen so much,_  
_I cannot settle for not enough._  
_So I'll sweat, and I'll grind_  
_till I reach my prime._

\- Lupe Fiasco

* * *

_**February 2015 - Karkat Vantas** _

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re nearly finished with your last class for the day: Victorian Lit. It’s some mandatory English elective you need in order to graduate. Were it not, you wouldn’t be a hundred feet within this classroom. As usual, you’re sitting in the back, with your earbuds in. You’re listening to Tetsuo & Youth for the 20th time since it came out.

The fact that someone with a double major in Psychology and Biology needs to take this bullshit to get a diploma continues to astound you. You are never going to need to know this shit in the future. A dark little voice in your head reminds you that you said the same thing about Calculus, and then you ended up having to take Physics with calculus since you were a science major.

You are still 99.999999% sure you’re never going to need to know any of this crap later. To add insult to injury, you wanted to take African American Lit to fulfill this last gen-ed requirement, but all the seats in that class were taken. Kanaya swears up and down that it’s more boring than you could possibly imagine, but you can’t imagine it being more boring than this.

Nevertheless, here you are. Reading about dead white men, and playing hangman with Eridan, who is sitting next to you and paying slightly more attention to the lesson than you are.

At least you’re up to reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, so the course isn’t sleep-inducing as it was when reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles. You try to follow along with the discussion, but honestly? You don’t really give a shit. You have a headache and the ibuprofen is all the way back in your room.

You’ll get the notes from Eridan or something.

A few minutes later, your professor finally dismisses you, which is cool, because you’d like to get something from your headache, and you need to check your messages.

You fold the top corner of the page to mark your place, sling your bag over your shoulder, and walk out of the classroom. Someone has been messaging your incessantly for the last half hour, causing the phone in your back pocket to vibrate against your left ass-cheek in the most annoying way.

“Hey, Kar, wanna head to the dining hall after this?” Eridan asks, as he adjusts his stupid looking scarf.

Yeah, maybe. You could probably use some food, too.

“I guess so,” you reply. “Lemme check my messages first, though.”

“You got it.”

You open Pesterchum and groan when you observe that someone has started a group chat. Sometimes you wish you could turn that function off for a month or ten. You like your friends, but you don’t want to scroll through something like 241 messages, especially if it has to do with Dirk trying to find a place within ten miles of campus that sells flavored lube, like last time.

The last few are messages are vaguely interesting, and you’re only reading the last few ‘cause you don’t give a shit about the others.

GG: in summmary  
GG: that is why karkat needs to check his mail!!!  
TA: JD how drunk did you tell RX to get you  
GG: im invoking the fifth amendment cause im celebrating :P  
TG: ya lispy cram a fucken sock in it  
TA: well JD congrat2 on beeiing more coherent than RX when you’re drunk  
GG: im going to assume that was a compliment!  
CG: WHAT THE FUCK??  
GG: and hey karkat check your mail! :D  
GG: you were all sulky about how sucky your day has been  
GG: maybe its about to stop sucking!  
TA: KK iin all honestly  
TA: ii picked up your maiil  
TA: you need two get back to our 2uiite liike ye2terday cau2e DVs goiing two open the letter hiim2elf iif you dont  
CG: WHATEVER IT TAKES TO GET ALL OF YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP.  
CG: I’LL BRING SHITTY DINING HALL FOOD BACK SINCE I KNOW NONE OF YOU EAT.  
CG: ALONG WITH ERIDAN  
TA: do you have two briing the 2econd thiing  
CA: this is a group chat you ovvercaffeinated bastard  
CA: i can see wwhat youre saying  
TA: yeah so what  
CA: go to hell  
TA: ii 2hare a liiviing 2pace wiith you  
TA: ii am already there  
CG: STOP BEING FUCKING DIPSHITS BEFORE I PUT YOU BOTH IN TIME OUT.  
CG: AND BY TIME OUT, I MEAN TAKE YOU OUT BACK AND SHOOT YOU.  
CA: lovve you too kar  
TA: be 2tiill my heart

You get your shitty dining hall food, which is only moderately shitty. Several plates of fries, piled high with cheese, onions, and bacon bits. Eridan gets yogurt, a Greek salad, and a bottle of water. He gazes at your food somewhat disdainfully. Fuck him and his consumption of food with actual nutrients in it.

You will go into the afterlife with plaque in your arteries and hate in your heart.

Furthermore, you have a half mind to tell Eridan to fuck off with his passive-aggressive judgment, but you’re too lazy for that at the moment. And your ass is vibrating again, and not even in a good way. You take your phone out of your back pocket and check it.

GG: so  
GG: have you checked your mail yet  
GG: have you  
GG: its going to be awesome!  
CG: ONE MORE WORD OUT OF YOU AND YOU CAN JOIN THE WONDER TWINS OUT BACK.  
TG: you really need to find some chill  
TG: someone needs to write you a script for chill  
TA: they iinvented that already  
TA: ii thiink it2 called valiium

You roll your eyes and shove the phone into your bag, having now learned your lesson about vibrating asses.

When you and Eridan get back to your dorm building, you almost check your mailbox before remembering that Sollux has whatever the fuck this important document is.

“Good luck, Kar,” Eridan says. You nod in acknowledgement, but don’t reply.

You think you have an idea, and while you have your moments of faint optimism, you’re also cynical, and realistic. So until you have that letter in your hand, and are able to read its contents, you are not going to dare hope a thing.

Expect nothing, and never be disappointed, you figure.

However, if the letter is what you are expecting it to be, that means…

It means that all your work will have paid off. Three years of non-stop study, undergraduate research, shadowing pretty much every physician who would let you, chugging enough coffee to render you twitchy, and generally not sleeping for more than five hours, in order to reach this point.

It also means that this really is the second term of your senior year. Senior Year, with the last day of college in sight.

Things aren’t quite winding down yet, what with you scrambling to meet deadlines and study for exams like your life depends on it - and it does - but it’s the beginning of the end. As much as you feel like little more than a teenager with a drinking license, you are not a kid anymore. You turned twenty-one on your last birthday. You are an adult.

You are terrified of this fact. Getting your tax returns and no longer treating the act as a novelty? Taking a job that pays above ten bucks an hour? Actually driving a car further than ten miles on a regular basis? Not calling Kanaya or Tavros up every time you burn dinner and need someone to tell you how to salvage it?

You don’t know if you can do this.

Worst of all, you’re going to graduate in a few months, and your gang of morons will go their separate ways - to more education, to jobs, to whatever the fuck. Some of them will leave the state, and you’ll no longer be within fifteen miles of everyone, and you are so not gonna cry. You can do all your crying at graduation, like everyone else.

You do your best to stop catastrophizing and thinking negative thoughts.

For fuck’s sake, if you got in, you should be glad, not apprehensive. You are always at least a little apprehensive, though.

You unlock the door with one hand, the other hand holding all the food you have. In retrospect, you should have told Eridan to hold the food, because unlocking a door with one hand is a bitch. Once you walk into the common area, all the chatter stutters to a halt. You put the food down and roll your eyes.

“Don’t tell me,” you say. “There’s a giant pimple on my face.”

“Nah, that was yesterday,” Dave says, before he kisses you on the forehead. “It’s still there, just for future reference.”

Sometimes you wonder why you’re dating him.

“Why didn’t you tell me, fuckass?”

“You didn’t ask,” he replies.

You roll your eyes and put the food down, explaining that it’s for everyone, pointedly staring holes into Gamzee's lanky frame when you say it.

He might be one of your best friends, but his stomach is a black hole that will not be satisfied by normal amounts of food.

“I have your mail,” Sollux says slowly, once you’re done glaring.

Nobody says a word after that, not even Gamzee, a hushed reverence having descended on the room.

And everyone who lives here is here. Even John, and you’re pretty sure he has class right now. Sollux hands you the envelope, flap side up, his hands perfectly still. Once you flip it over, and see the return address and telltalle insignia, you are the person with the shaky hands.

“Someone get me a letter opener before I vomit,” you say, having lost the ability to shout.

Gamzee comes back with a butter knife - close enough, you guess - grinning at you, and saying, “Go on, my most righteous brother. Open it.”

You do, very slowly and very carefully. There’s more than one thing in the envelope, but you’re really only searching for one piece of paper.

A letter. _The_ letter. And when you find it, as you unfold it, you can feel your heart beating double time in your chest.

“Dear Karkat,” it begins. “I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected for admission to ________ College of Medicine, Class of 2019.”

You refrain from reading the rest, because holy shit. Holy actual shit with hot sauce. You did it. Somehow, you did it.

“I did it!” you shout, still stuck in a state of disbelief. “I can’t fucking believe I did it!”

“You did it man,” Dave says. “You made it happen.”

He slings an arm around your shoulders and kisses you.

After that, you do a Roxy, despite being sober, and grab onto the wall to keep from falling into the sky. You think that’s what she calls that particular move. When you’re steadier on your feet, you pick up your phone.

CG: I CHECKED MY MAIL. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?  
GG: quite!  
GG: are *you* happy now! :D  
CG: YEAH  
CG: SORTA  
CG: IN A STATE OF SHOCK AT THE MOMENT.  
GG: me too  
GG: wanna meet up at the library in an hour or so  
GG: or the union  
CG: YEAH SURE WHATEVER  
CG: LET’S MEET UP AT THE UNION.  
CG: IF YOU’VE BEEN DRINKING WITH ROXY, YOU PROBABLY NEED SOME CARBS IN YOUR SYSTEM.  
GG: good idea

“Alright guys, you know what this calls for?” Dave asks.

“What?” Eridan asks.

“A party,” Dave says. “First person to fall asleep loses.”

Sollux rolls his eyes. “Itth Wednethday you dumb fuck. We have clathth in the morning.”

“Friday, then,” Dave says. “That’ll give all of us time to get party materials together.”

“So alcohol, weed, cranberry juice, corn chips, chicken nuggets and fries,” John figures.

“No shit man,” Dave says. “And we gotta invite Jade, too. This is going to be the party to end all parties.”

Eridan snorts.

“I think that title belongs to the party Cro and I threw right before 12th grade started.”

You think you have some lingering gastrointestinal issues from consuming four glasses of the jungle juice Roxy mixed at that gathering. You still can’t drink strawberry Kool-Aid without getting the urge to vomit on the nearest - and occasionally human - surface.

“The party to end all parties that everyone actually remembers then,” Dave replies.

“Too bad we’re not having it at your plathe again, otherwithe I could throw KK in your pool like latht time,” Sollux muses.

You scowl, and take a sip from the soda you got at the dining hall.

“I still haven’t fucking forgiven you for that, you know.”

Sollux gives you his best “like-I-give-a-shit” look.

“It sobered you up, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, after I almost drowned, you indomitable fuck!”

You and Sollux argue like this for a good while, until Dave politely requests that you two either shut up or make out. You’d shout about that too, except then, you remember that you’re supposed to be meeting up with Jade fairly soon. You tell your suitemates not to get killed unless they film it, and that you’ll be back eventually. On your way out of the building, you silently hope that Roxy didn’t get Jade too intoxicated. She’s not a sloppy drunk, or an angry drunk. She’s a sleepy drunk, and is taller and more muscular than you. Then again, you’re exactly 5'1", so everyone is taller than you.

You really do not want to have to try to pick her up and carry her back to her room.

And while you walk across campus on this cold night, feeling seven parts shocked and one part triumphant, you contemplate the last few years of your life, and all the work you did to get to this moment in time.The sleepless nights learning Physics and Organic Chemistry, Roxy helping you with the former, and Calliope helping you with the latter. You and Jade throwing MCAT questions at each other whenever the chance arose. You and Jade practically moving into the library to study together, because you had so many classes in common. Going to pre-med society meetings and actually staying awake. She wasn’t the only person from your friend group whom you knew there, but to your knowledge, only you and she have gotten into your schools, so far.

Sophomore year was something of a turning point for you. You worked much harder than you ever had - and you’d worked pretty hard before - rising long before any sane person would be awake, so that when Sollux walked up to eat his cereal, you’d been hitting the books for nearly two hours. Evening was the same. You made and ate dinner, then curled up in bed with your notes and a textbook or two, annotating this and highlighting that, often falling asleep with a book an inch away from your drooling mouth.

Still, as long as you don’t do something spectacularly awful, like get straight C’s in your classes from here on out, that length of the race is nearly over. You’ll be running a much faster race, come August. At least you’ll have a friend with you.

When you get to the student union, Jade’s standing in front of the union next to Calliope, eating a bagel. Jade looks like she walked here from her dorm room, in an unzipped coat, a faded sweater, slacks, socks, and slippers. The slippers have little paw prints on them. Since it’s unbraided, her hair is one giant floof of black coil-curls that extend more outwards than down.

Meanwhile, Callie has on a sweater, a lime green scrub shirt, white pants, white sneakers, and an exceedingly tired look on their face. You’re surprised to see them here and not running through the hallways of the medical center looking like a bat out of hell.

Jade waves you over frantically, and hugs you as tightly as you can, once she notices your existence. She gives off the slightest smell of some kind of alcohol. You don’t drink enough to be able to differentiate between them.

You wish you were taller so you could pick her up and swing her around, the way John does every once in a while.

“It’s so great to see you!” Her pearly white smile forms a crescent moon against the night sky of her skin. “I can’t believe we did it!”

You can believe she did it, but you still can’t believe you did.

“Yeah, well,” you say, a little lost for words. You turn to Callie, then and ask, “got out of rotations early tonight?”

Callie shakes their head.

“Not really. I thought I had rotations tonight, but I got my calendar mixed up,” they explain. “They’re not until tomorrow. Wish I’d known that before I hiked to the medical center, though.”

“I see. Well, that sucks,” you tell them.

“It’s not all bad. I needed a break from the books, anyway.” They grin. “And by the way, Karkat, congratulations!”

You smile back, mostly because it’s Calliope speaking, and you can’t not smile at them. Not smiling at Callie has to be some minor act of blasphemy.

“Thanks,” you reply.

Callie and Jade continue talking about whatever it is they were talking about before you got here, but pause every so often to leave you room to interject. You are still in shock, so you don’t have much to say yet.

“…yeah, and you don’t really do in-hospital stuff your first two years,” Jade goes on. “From what I heard, it’s a lot of lectures, and not that different from undergrad.”

“Undergrad, except fucking hard mode. No extra lives. No continues,” you say. “But YOLO.”

Sollux would probably get a kick out of that analogy, you think to yourself.

Both Calliope and Jade laugh.

However, after Callie gets reprimanded by security or whoever for smoking their cigarette less than fifteen feet away from the entrance of the student union, you three decide to venture into the forest of questionable activity, since nobody will bother you there. Okay, so it’s more like Jade making the suggestion and you two rolling with it.

All of you sit down in the dirt, in the actual middle of nowhere. Jade takes off her backpack, and removes a few things. A mostly full bottle of rum, a large bottle of cranberry juice, and a few red Solo cups.

“We should celebrate,” she says.

“Are you sure you want me to stay?” Calliope asks. “This is your celebration.”

“Callie, you’re our friend and you’re already here,” you tell them. “If you want to leave ‘cause you’re tired, that’s one thing. But don’t fuckin leave cause of us."

“What he said,” Jade pipes up.

You look over the bottle of rum and snort, thinking of Dave’s impending celebration, party, thing.

If he weren’t already taken - by you, of all people, you are still not sure how that happened - you’d tell him to go out with Jade. They operate on the same fucking wavelength a lot of the time.

You accept a cup from her, but mix your own drink, because Jade attended the Roxy Lalonde School of Bartending, which means anything she mixes might kill you.

Callie pours themself a healthy measure of rum, no cranberry juice, no pretense.

Jade does not upend half the bottle into her cup. Much to your surprise, given how much time she spends with Roxy, she actually prepares herself a sane ratio of rum to cranberry. She leans back against a nearby tree, stretching her arms up toward the sky. You offer a shivering Calliope your jacket, which they refuse to take until you refuse to put it back on. You are not letting them freeze to death. Roxy would murder you. You’d murder you.

Jade finishes her drink and scoots over to you, resting her head on your shoulder. You throw an arm around her. You don’t mind this in the least. You’ve always been rather fond of Jade.

“Guess who else got in?” she asks, once she finishes her first drink.

“If you say Vriska, I’m jumping in front of a train,” you say.

Calliope looks like they'd very much like to laugh, but won’t. They try to be on good terms with everyone, even Vriska. You have no idea why.

“No, no,” Jade replies. “It’s someone you don’t hate.”

“I hate everyone.”

“Well, someone low on your hate list.”

You throw your hands up in confusion. “You tell me, Jade.”

“Tavros!” she exclaims, in halfway sing-song. You’re surprised she knows about this either way, since they don’t really run in the same social circles the way they did in high school. However, Jade is quick to explain that one once you ask. “He snapchatted a picture of his acceptance letter to Callie, and Callie told me after I ran into them by the union. So you, me, and him are going to have an interesting four years.”

You think about that. Not so much about Tavros. You’re actually on good terms with him, considering the fact that he’s never really pissed you off before.

Instead, you’re thinking about how many years of education you still have left. Four years of medical school proper, four years of residency, and a variable number (at least two) years of fellowship. And don’t forget the CMEs you’ll have take every so often once you’re done with all that. You thought you were near the finish line? Think again, Vantas.

It’ll be worth it, though, you figure. At least there aren’t some stupid electives on Victorian Lit to take. Everything you learn will be vaguely germane to your future. Most of everything, anyway.

“We’re gonna be in school forever, Jade. Way more than four years,” you say, half-joking, and half-tired, once you make yourself another drink. “Especially you.”

“Well, of course I am,” she replies. “I wouldn’t someone poking around in my brain unless they had a thousand years of training!”

Callie laughs in earnest.

“So, how’re rotations treating you?” Jade asks them.

“They’re a little annoying, sometimes,” Callie confesses. “But I have Porrim to call and vent to, so it’s not too bad.”

Every so often, you say, “I can’t believe we did it.” It gets to the point where the phrase feels stale in your mouth.

You three keep passing the bottles of cranberry juice and rum around, until the rum is gone, and all of you are at least pleasantly tipsy.

“I have no idea why I ever get drunk,” you tell Callie and Jade. “I’m gonna have the mother of all hangovers later.”

“Well, I’ll drag your butt to class, no matter what,” Jade says. “We have neurofizz at 8:30.”

Yes, because you so want discuss readings about the biology and physiology of the brain at half past fuck college AM. Fuck neurophysiology.

Man, fuck Thursdays. Fuck the person who invented Thursdays. Fuck the person who invented 7 AM. Fuck the person who invented time. Fuck the person who invented 7:30 AM classes. Most of all, fuck the person who invented this class and thought it was a good idea to hold it before 10.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, fuck off,” you say. “Consider it payback for all the times I wake you up when you fall asleep in class.”

“I’ve gotten way better with that since high school.”

It’s true. She has. But you can’t resist a small jibe.

“Jade, that is setting the bar underground.”

“You can be a real dick when you put your mind to it, I hope you’re aware.”

“And even when I don’t,” you quip.

You can see her fighting off the urge to laugh. She leans over and kisses you on the cheek.

You do your level best not to blush, and you don’t think she can see it, but your cheeks are burning. Then, she rests her head on your left thigh. You two used to do this a lot when you were younger, before you felt a faint static in the air whenever you and she were in close proximity. Sometime between tenth and eleventh grade, you lost the ability to say intelligent things around her. You got it back during your first year of college, but still.

You grin like a fool.

“Next time you make fun of me, I’ll bite you,” she promises.

She gazes up at you, the lenses of her glasses glinting in the moonlight. You attempt to card a hand through her hair, but all your fingers do is get tangled. Her hair is almost as coarsely textured as your own.

Meanwhile, Calliope has begun to doze off, their head resting against a nearby sapling.

You take Jade’s hand, the strings she’s tied around her fingers tickling your skin slightly. She squeezes your hand, and laughs at no one and nothing in particular.

“I can’t believe we did it,” you say, for what must be the umpteenth time.

Instead of making fun of you for repeating yourself, she leans up at the same time you lean down. She presses her lips to yours, and you return the gesture.

(It’s incredibly cheesy, you’ll think, later. If this were a movie, Dave and Sollux would have thrown their sodas at the screen.)

When you pull away from her, she’s staring at you, her bright green eyes inscrutable.

“Why haven’t we done that before?” she finally asks.

“We were sober?” you offer. Then you realize how mean that must sound, and you didn’t intend for it to come off that way. You amend your statement. “And the proper moment never happened.”

She shakes her head and punches you in the arm, but doesn’t pull away. Then, she looks at the strings on her fingers, and tugs on a black one, seeming thoughtful, and altogether sad.

“I have something to ask you,” she says.

You down the last of your drink before you respond.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I was thinking…”

“You’re always thinking,” you say, and then apologize for interrupting her.

“Accepted. Anyway, I was thinking. My family owns an apartment building,” she says.

You nod. You’ve been there. That was back when her grandparents were still alive, and her grandfather’s penchant for wandering and having a stupid handlebar moustache made you embarrassed for Jade.

You think you’re adding two and two and coming up with the right answer in terms of what Jade is about to say.

“And?”

“With mass transit, it’s like thirty-five minutes away from where we’ll be going to school. Maybe fifteen if we drive. There’s an apartment in the building with no tenants in it at the moment. So I was thinking about that and…”

“You want me to move in with you?” you ask.

“You and Tavros,” she says. “I know this place is wheelchair accessible. I don’t really want to live alone, and this way, you two don’t have to pay a fortune for student housing. I wouldn’t charge you two much.”

Being that you hadn’t bothered to think that far ahead until she mentioned it - does she ever stop thinking? - her proposition seems like a pretty good one.

You tell her that you accept, assuming that you don’t get into Columbia Med, because that is your absolute first choice, and you are so going there if you have the chance. You probably won’t get in, given that you’re almost certain you barely got into your second choice school.

“Same here,” Jade says. “And I already asked Tavros, and he’s up for it. It would be the three of us. Two bedrooms, one bath. You and he can share a room, if you want.”

“Sounds good to me,” you say.

Jade stares up at the sky for a while, saying nothing. After about five minutes of this, she sighs, and goes right back to staring.

“Jade?” you ask. “You okay?”

“I wish they could have seen it,” she says. “I wish they’d been around so I could call them and tell them everything. My grandparents, I mean, especially my grandfather. And Becquerel.”

You’re not the nicest person in the world. Not even in the top thousand, really. But you don’t like seeing your friends sad.

It’s a clear night, so you can see most of the stars that you’d be able to see from here.

You point out a random one.

“You see that star there?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, not understanding where you’re going with this yet.

“Well, that’s your grandfather going on some kind of stupid fucking adventure. And the second one, next to it? That’s your grandmother running after him to make sure he doesn’t die. Do you know why the stars aren’t moving?”

You’re pulling this explanation of your ass as you go along, and Jade’s a Physics major - at least that’s one of her majors - and something of an astronomy enthusiast, but she’s not refuting you, and she seems less sad for your explanation.

“Why, Karkat?”

“They’ve stopped so they can see you properly. They’re proud of you and they want to watch,” you continue. “And forget about Becquerel. He’s got his own fucking constellation, what’s it called, uh…”

“Canis Major, maybe?” Jade supplies.

“Yeah, fucking exactly,” you reply.

You two are pretty wasted, you realize. Well, you are probably the drunkest. You shouldn’t have finished that last drink.

Jade raises herself to a kneeling position on the cold ground, and hugs you again.

She’s not crying. In fact, she's giving you a genuine smile.

“Thank you, Karkat,” she says.

“No problem.”

She looks at her hand again, at a more lightly colored string, and curses loudly.

“Fuck! I forgot to do the reading for tomorrow. And I hate bothering Tavros for notes.”

Everyone bothers Tavros for notes.

“Do it when you get back to your room, or do it really early in the morning,” you suggest. “And so long as we’re talking about Tavros, Dave’s throwing a party on Friday night. Y’know, to celebrate that we haven’t brought ultimate dishonor on ourselves by getting rejection letters.”

Jade snorts. “Dave’ll use anything as an excuse to spin his records. Someone could have died, and he’d be remixing Daft Punk in the funeral home.”

“Yeah well, I don’t pretend to comprehend how his weird excuse for a brain works,” you reply. “We should tell Tavros, though. He’s definitely also invited. And if he’s not, I’ll fucking make him invited.”

Jade laughs in earnest.

“It’s kind of late for that, but I guess we can call him after we wake Callie. I don’t want them to end up sick or something for staying out here any longer,” she replies. “Besides, the sooner we get them inside, the sooner you can have your jacket back.”

She shakes Calliope’s shoulder, the smaller person opening their eyes reluctantly. Jade helps them to their feet.

“Once I get back to my room, I’m passing out until tomorrow night,” Callie says. “Tell me there’s no dirt on my pants.”

“Maybe when get somewhere we can see a little better?” Jade offers.

The three of you walk slowly, against the wind, back out of the forest of questionable activities, and toward the dorm where the both of them live. Jade notices no dirt on Callie’s pants, much to the latter’s relief, because that means they don't have to do laundry yet.

You dig out your phone and call Tavros.

“Mmm?” comes a groggy male voice from the other end. “What’s um, uh, what’s going on?”

He sounds so exhausted that you could probably say to him him that the moon is made of snow, and first off, he’d agree, and second off, the following morning, he’d forget that he did.

“Nevermind, jackass,” you say. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Got it, man. G’night.”

You hang up first.

You three keep walking.

Once you get to the right building, Callie gives you back your jacket, which they accidentally spilled cranberry juice on, and Jade promises to wake you up at the asscrack of dawn so you can get to class.

What great friends you have.

(You’re still shocked that Jade likes you enough to want to put up with your shit for four years, but you’re still generally shocked about everything that’s happened today.)

You walk alone back to your building on the other side of campus. When you get back, the only person still awake is Sollux, sitting on the couch in the common area. Roxy’s curled up and snoring next to him. She must have come over here after Jade left for the union.

This late, Sollux has to be either coding, skyping with Feferi, or watching porn.

Roxy’s presence and the fact that he’s not wearing his headphones suggest it isn’t the second or third thing. You keep the lights dim, so as not to wake her. Yeah, this technically isn’t her suite, but she lives here. You gave up trying to kick her out like two years ago.

“Congratth, KK,” Sollux says to you, in a half-whisper. He too is trying not to wake up Roxy.

“Thanks,” you reply, before you walk into the kitchen to make yourself a cup of hot chocolate so you can take your meds with something that isn’t water.

Once it’s ready, you take your medication and sip from your mug until you feel even more tired than you did when you walked in here. You take the other mug of hot chocolate - you made two - and give it to your dipshit of a roommate.

“Fucking thweet,” he says. “I retract anything I ever said about you being a fuckathth.”

“Sure you do,” you reply.

You don’t even attempt to study before you go to bed, although you do set your alarm for 6:30. Your shitty standard-issue dorm room mattress, it calls to you with false promises of halfway decent sleep, and vows not to herniate your discs until final exams.

You send a perfunctory text to Kankri to bring him up to speed with the current state of affairs, and warn him that if he texts you back and it wakes you up, you’ll take the train back to Brooklyn to strangle him. You also text Porrim, and thank her for tutoring you, proofreading all your application essays and generally listening to you bitch and moan. She’s probably at work right now, her phone stowed away some place. Oh, well. She’ll get your message eventually. You don’t have to tell her you’ll kill her if she wakes you up, since she actually has common sense.

Half an hour later, Sollux climbs into your bed and lies down next to you. He’s been doing this every winter since your first year of college. He is a skinny fuck of a human being and if he turns the thermostat up any higher, everyone bitches, moans, and demands to know who turned the suite into an oven. It’s warmer in your bed when there’s two of you, apparently. It’s even warmer when you two are making out, but you are too tired to attempt any mack. If you fall asleep during makeouts, this dipshit will never let you live it down.

He kisses the back of your neck, and the side of your face, his hair tickling your ear. If you weren’t dead tired, you’d have a word for what you’re feeling. The same feeling you had with Jade earlier. Where you’re not quite in love, and you sure as hell don’t want a relationship, but if you could stop time at a moment for a while, you’d pick one like this.

You still have a few months before graduation and the start of the next chapter of your life, but you’re not sure what you’re going to do without this jackass in your face constantly. You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want the tedium of college to blossom into something more vital, purposeful and interesting, but you also want to keep the nice, gentle things. Like this. Sollux throws an arm around your waist, and you move so that you’re pressed up against him.

“Night, KK,” he murmurs.

“Night, asshole,” you reply.

In the morning - and it’s way too light out, you must have slept through the alarm - the first thing you hear upon opening your eyes is Roxy yelling, “The doctor is in!”

You poke your head out the door and see that she’s talking about Jade, who snort-giggles at the expression of absolute annoyance on your face. She promised to drag your ass out of bed for class come hell or high water, and here she is. You really are amused by her sometimes.

“I’m gonna uh…” You need to wake up and fast. Faster than coffee. “I’m gonna take a shower and get dressed.”

Jade and Roxy lapse into one of their usually enthusiastic (and loud) conversations, while you pick out your clothes for the day, and take the world’s fastest, and coldest shower. It works, though. You are definitely up now.

You and Jade walk in relative silence to class, mostly rehashing the last reading you had to do, and groaning about the current one.

“Hey, couldja slow down?” you ask her. You think you’re pretty fit, but Jade is a force of nature. “My legs are starting to hurt.”

“I told Tavros to meet us in front of the building a few minutes before neurofizz so you could tell him about the party,” she says. “And we’re running out of time.”

Fine, then. Whatever. Fuck this shit. You give her a look that implies all of that, and she calls you a douche. Whatever.

And true to form, Tavros is sitting right in front of the entrance, the brakes on his chair engaged, playing Pokemon X for the 12th time.

“Tavros!” Jade yells brightly. “Are you ready?”

He glances up and laughs and admits that he probably isn’t.

“There you two are,” he says, then. “So what’s this I’ve been hearing, about, um, a party?”

You shrug.

“There’s not much to know. Dave’s throwing a party ‘cause a bunch of us got into grad or med school, he’s probably going to be DJ-ing, meaning that you’d better be prepared for us to get a noise complaint, and if you’re planning to drink, bring a bottle and share with the rest of the class. Oh yeah. Bring food too. Actual food. Not chicken nuggets, fries, or Doritos.”

“Okay then,” he replies, before he fist-bumps you. “I got this.”

Tavros is pretty cool. You can probably survive going to school and living with him for four years, provided he doesn’t get back with Vriska and bring her by Jade’s place.

Each of you takes your seats. You take out the book containing the readings for this class, a battered notebook, and something to write on. You have the seat at the end of the row, Tavros’s chair is parked next to yours, and Jade is starting to fall asleep to the other side of you. If she’s still sleeping in five minutes, you’ll jab her with your pen.

Before long, the professor asks a question either nobody knows how or wants to answer. She calls on someone at random, and thankfully, it is no one in your little group.

While you write down important things, emotions your shock had been dampening slam into you.

Soon enough, you’ll take your final set of finals. Soon enough, you’ll graduate. Soon enough, you, Tavros, and Jade will be in the same school again - but differently, you suppose. Each of you with your plans and rough sketches for the next several years, your eyes full of the future, and your hands that will learn to hold life and death.

But for now, you’re still a sleep-deprived undergraduate. You take a swig of coffee, ground yourself in the present, poke Jade until she wakes up, and pay attention to the lecture.


End file.
